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It's that time again. Not only do we have crocuses in the garden (this is a photo from last year. They're in the middle of really muddy patch and I can't get close enough to take a good photo), its time for one of our all time favorite breads. Yep, that's a loaf of Irish Soda Bread. I remembered to buy enough buttermilk when we went shopping so we could make several loaves. Buttermilk isn't something I keep around the house. No one drinks it (I think it would make me gag) but it makes wonderful biscuits and soda bread.

Pk wanted a loaf to take into work tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day. We got home from work a little late (I had clients who needed to be seen by the doctor today and so I made sure they were seen-it took a little longer) and changed our clothes and settled in for a mini marathon. Elanor and I made 8 loaves of bread. Each recipe makes 2 so it was only 4 batches. We gave Kate and Patrick a loaf (and then I found out he doesn't like raisins) and Pk will take a loaf into work and so we have 6 loaves left. Well, 5 1/2 since we ate half a loaf already. I'll put 4 into the freezer and I guarantee they won't last long. It's something I only make at St. Pat's day so it's special. And there's enough buttermilk left for some really good biscuits for breakfast on Sunday morning. Not cookie type biscuits but kind of like unsweetened scones. (I don't know what you call these if you call cookies biscuits)

Otherwise, things are quiet here. The rain finally stopped. We had almost 3 inches of water in the lowest level of the house. Nothing is damaged since this is not the first time we've flooded and we have everything up on metal shelves. It's a storage area (and the laundry room) so no furniture or anything got wet. There is still alot of standing water all around. Fortunately, the weather is supposed to be sunny and unseasonably warm for the next few days. We can dry out.

I ripped out clue 2 of my shawl and am in the process of re-knitting it. The stitches for clue 3 weren't matching up the way I thought they were supposed to. It's a good thing I think of myself as a process knitter. Actually, I want this to be the best I can make it so ripping it out and redoing it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

So, Happy St. Patrick's Day to you. In the US everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I have Irish ancestors (and English and Dutch and German and......). My grandmom used to tell me we were mutts. Such a mixture of peoples. I think of myself as an American. But tomorrow, I'll be Irish and wear green and eat soda bread. And then go to the gym. I'll have to work off all that bread.......

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Nope, I'm not Irish on St. Patrick's Day. It's too annoying how it overshadows St. Joseph's Day. Guess what? We passed a natural food store the other day and they had a sign up, "Order gluten-free zeppoles!" I never did like zeppoles though--too sweet--so I don't care either way.

The governor here declared a state of emergency here for one town! A river reached its highest level EVER, so the news kept calling it "historic floods." I used to rent an apartment in that town, and the flooded section is full of apartments on the lower end of the scale, rentwise (I was in college when I lived there: it was a hovel, but it was cheap) and I wondered, again, why the natural disasters always seem to hit the poorer sections. It seems doubly unfair.

What you call biscuits we don't really call anything, because we don't really have an equivalent! I guess if they are like unsweetened scones, then we'd call them savoury scones - but they aren't a breakfast food here either!! Funny hey!

If you don't want to specially buy buttermilk, you can make a substitute by mixing lemon juice (a small amount) with regular milk. No doubt it's not quite the same, but might work out in a pinch!

hehe, what you call cookies we call biscuits, or most of us do or rosered gets cross :) as for biscuits made with buttermilk and soda, well i'd give them a go! happy st patricks day, we have a lot of mutts here too!

I just walked past one of our local "Irish" bars with a terrible "Irish" band playing and the beer garden was packed - this is lunch time on a Wednesday. Plenty of Australians are Irish on St Pat's day, as long as there is beer involved. We don't colour it green though. I'd love to try some soda bread one day.

Silly question perhaps - where is the water in your basement coming from (I know, the sky, duh). Obviously there is a reason you can't make it watertight - does it just seep in? Forgive me, I live in a pretty dry place!

My husband's family are all Irish, and he is the only one living in Australia, so we go to Ireland reasonably regularly, when we can afford it, maybe every three years.

We didn't have any Irish food, but my husband did go out and buy some Guiness.

What is a zeppole?

The best Irish soda bread has an ingredient in it I can't find in Australia - it's call pinhead oatmeal. It's not like a flat oatmeal and it's a bit gutsier than a wholemeal flour - it makes the most wonderful dense and healthy tasting substance - my family eat it with thick unsalted butter - it's YUM and they eat it all the time. That and a shedload of potatoes.

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